Lebanon still reeling from suicide bombing

Islamic Extremism

A relative of Samer Huhu, who was killed in a twin bombing attack that rocked a busy shopping street in the area of Burj al-Barajneh, waves his portrait as she mourns during his funeral in the southern suburb of the capital Beirut on November 13, 2015. Lebanon mourned 44 people killed in south Beirut in a twin bombing claimed by the Islamic State group, the bloodiest such attack in years, the Red Cross also said at least 239 people were also wounded, several in critical condition. AFP PHOTO/JOSEPH EID

Published November 17, 2015 at 1:18 PM Updated November 20, 2015 at 7:24 PM

The world’s attention might move quickly from one headline grabbing global atrocity to the next but for the victims of a terrorist attack the pain and suffering lasts a lot longer.

Beirut’s recent double suicide bombing that left at least 44 dead and more than 250 others wounded was perpetrated by ISIL affiliates.

Around the crime scenes in south Beirut, a sense of shock and sadness still lingers, with cafes and usual markets quieter than usual.

A young boy’s parents died instantly in the deadly twin suicide blasts that destroyed a southern Shiite neighborhood of Beirut while the boy, Haider was taken to a hospital.

“His mother was hugging him as she died,” said the boy’s cousin, Adraa Taleb.

The boy was sitting on his mother’s lap while his father was parking the family’s SUV when the first suicide bomber detonated his explosives’ vest outside the nearby Shiite mosque in the predominately Shiite neighborhood of Burj al-Barajneh, a stronghold of Shiite Muslim group Hezbollah. The parents were killed instantly.

The southern suburb of Beirut is in the heartland of Hezbollah, and ISIL vowed “more attacks against Hezbollah” on their Twitter account. The southern suburbs of Beirut have been targeted by suicide bombers since July 2013 in retaliation to Hezbollah’s involvement in the Syrian crisis.

Lebanon’s interior minister Nuhad Mashnuq said that the country had arrested the entire network behind the suicide bombings in southern Beirut suburb of Bourj al-Barajneh.

“The detained include seven Syrians and two Lebanese, one of them a (would-be) suicide bomber and the other a trafficker who smuggled them across the border from Syria,” Nuhad told a news conference on Sunday.

He said the seven Syrians were detained in a Palestinian refugee camp located in Burj al-Barajneh and a flat in the capital’s eastern district of Ashrafieh that had been used to prepare the explosive belts.

He also stressed that Lebanon must find solutions to its current political disputes, due to which the country has been without a president since May 2014.

“Political stability is the only means to secure the country,” he said.